DILBERT QUOTES CONTEST

DILBERT QUOTES CONTEST

A magazine recently ran a "Dilbert Quotes"
contest.They were looking for people to submit quotes
from their real life Dilbert-type managers.

Here are the finalists:

1. "As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to
access the building using individual security cards.
Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees
will receive their cards in two weeks." (This was the
winning quote from Fred Dales at Microsoft Corp. in
Redmond, WA.)

2. "What I need is a list of specific unknown
problems we will encounter."
(Lykes Lines Shipping)

3. "E-mail is not to be used to pass on information
or data. It should be used only for company
business." (Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)

4. "This project is so important, we can't let things
that are more important interfere with it."
(Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel
Service)

5. "Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the
schedule."

6. "No one will believe you solved this problem in
one day! We've been working on it for months. Now,
go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when
it's time to tell them." (R&D supervisor, Minnesota
Mining and Manufacturing(3M) Corp.)

7. "My Boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25
page proposal that only needed corrections. She
claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she
couldn't edit it. The disk I gave her was write
protected." (CIO of Dell Computers)

8. Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people
doing what I say."
(Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

9. My sister passed away and her funeral was
scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said
she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work
on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we
could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That
would be better for me." (Shipping executive, FTD
Florists)

10. "We know that communication is a problem, but the
company is not going to discuss it with the
employees." (Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines
Division)

11. We recently received a memo from senior
management saying: "This is to inform you that a memo
will be issued today regarding the memo mentioned
above." (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division) [and we
wonder why we have problems with Windows...]

12. One day my Boss asked me to submit a status
report to him concerning a project I was working on.
I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He
said, "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited
until tomorrow to ask for it!" (New business manager,
Hallmark Greeting Cards)

13. And finally...the WINNER!! As director of
communications, I was asked to prepare a memo
reviewing our company's training programs and
materials.
In the body of the memo in one of the sentences I
mentioned the "pedagogical approach" ("in the manner
of a school teacher") used by one of the training
manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the
executive committee, I was called into the HR
director's office, and told that the executive vice
president wanted me out of the building by lunch.

When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn't stand
for perverts (pedophiles?) working in her company.
Finally, he showed me her copy of the memo, with her
demand that I be fired and the word "pedagogical"
circled in red. The HR manager was fairly reasonable,
and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and
made a copy of the definition to send back to her, he
told me not to worry. He would take care of it.

Two days later, a memo to the entire staff came out
directing us that no words which could not be found in
the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company
memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with
company policy, I created my resignation memo by
pasting words together from the Sunday paper.
(Taco Bell Corporation)